The U.S.’s credit rating was just downgraded due to our broken politics. Ranked choice voting can help.
2025 update: Since this post was published, yet another organization downgraded the United States’ credit rating: Moody’s. As FairVote CEO Meredith Sumpter noted, “Moody’s downgrading of the U.S. credit rating is as much about politics as it is about economics. If we want our leaders to govern in the interests of voters, and deliver market-stabilizing policies, we need reforms like ranked choice voting and proportional representation.”
Last week, Fitch Ratings downgraded the United States’ long-term credit for the first time in the company’s history, citing “a steady deterioration in standards of governance over the last 20 years.” Ironically, that’s almost exactly what Standard & Poor’s said when they downgraded America’s credit rating after the 2011 debt-limit crisis. This is just another in a long list of real-world consequences of hyper-polarization – consequences that ranked choice voting could help our country avoid.
During the debt-limit standoff this year and in 2011, we saw the result of our toxic politics. Our elected leaders are so unwilling to work with each other that they come within hours of economic disasters, despite having months of advance notice.
Why is our government so dysfunctional? Our single-choice voting system incentivizes politicians to appeal to a tiny fraction of voters at the expense of the majority. Ranked choice voting could flip these incentives around.
Most U.S. Representatives were elected by just a small fraction of the roughly 760,000 people they each represent. In fact, at least 85% of House seats are so “safe” for Democrats or Republicans that the winner in the primary is practically guaranteed to win the general election.
Even worse, in many of these primaries candidates win without a majority, meaning that many members of Congress have won over just a fraction of a fraction of the electorate. Is it any wonder only 12% of Americans feel very or extremely well represented by politicians?
Ranked choice voting would encourage members of Congress to engage with all citizens, because they’d need more than just a minority of their base to keep their job. And while ranked choice voting would be an important step toward decreasing polarization, the Fair Representation Act has the potential to transform our politics – and incentivize the House to solve problems that most voters want solved.
PS: Ranked choice voting could also help the House elect a Speaker in fewer than 15 ballots. Don’t take my word for it, ask Mark Cuban.